Tag Archives: Temple football

11.02.19
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Game Day Without The Owls

gameday

How the Owls played so well against Memphis and so poorly against UCF is a mystery

There are few things more depressing than waking up on a crisp Saturday in November without my beloved Temple Owls playing football but today is one of those days.


Consecutive games of 63 and 45
points cannot be easily explained
away by missing a couple of key
players. Miss 11 starting players
on defense and maybe you can talk
about an excuse for 63 points.
Two, not so much.

Game Day is not only without the Owls but includes a team they beat, Memphis, playing a team they should have been a lot more competitive against, SMU, on the most national of stages, the ABC Prime Time game of the week tonight.

Ugh.

Oh, what might have been.

You can make a strong argument that the Owls didn’t play the last two weeks, either, but that’s neither here or there because there is a void today that is as much psychological as it is physical. The Inquirer’s Marc Narducci made a great point in an article this week that the Owls lost to Buffalo because they were overconfident but, after being exposed by SMU, probably lost to UCF because their belief system in themselves was shaken by coming up microscopically small in Dallas.

There’s a lot to that theory because a normally sure-tackling team couldn’t tackle anyone nor was even seemingly in the vicinity of a tackle.

Consider this in this crazy season:

Temple dominates Georgia Tech, 24-2, which beat Miami (Fla.), which beat Pitt, which beat UCF. Temple beat Memphis, which is at least as good a team as UCF and SMU, possibly better. Temple doesn’t show up against either SMU or UCF.

eagle

2009 team never lost by 63-21

Something has happened since and it’s an easier fix on offense than the defense from a mostly schematic point of view. Definitely, a lot of it stems from not only their heads but the heads of their coaches. Consecutive games of 63 and 45 points cannot be easily explained away by missing a couple of key players. Miss 11 starting players on defense and maybe you can talk about an excuse for 63 points. Two, not so much.

If Pitt can beat UCF, Temple should have at least been competitive with that squad.

What was the difference?

Pitt won the time of possession battle (31 minutes, 13 seconds) by having 37 rushing attempts for 214 yards.

Temple didn’t even try to run or did so half-heartedly. Pitt established the run first against UCF and then had successful passing plays off of it. Temple tried to spread the field and open lanes for the run, which UCF’s speed closed off. Maybe a fullback and two tight ends would have helped. I suspect so, but we will now never know.

Screenshot 2019-11-01 at 11.24.16 PM

Early TV games today

For folks used to the way Temple has played in the past, it was sickening to watch.

Saturday night, the Owls paid tribute to the 10-year anniversary of their Eagle Bank Bowl team and I noted on facebook that those Owls never lost, 63-21. That was a Temple TUFF team in every sense of the word.

Dominque Harris, a safety who was drafted by the Green Bay Packers, replied to my post: “You know we would have fought tooth and nail, brother.” They also ran the ball behind an elite college tailback, Bernard Pierce, and a great blocking fullback.

Screenshot 2019-11-01 at 11.26.19 PM

Late TV games today

It might be too much to say this team quit, but you can’t lose 63-21 without the fight disappearing at some point. They had their teeth punched out and no tough as nails could be found anywhere.

Now you would figure the Owls’ coaches have been to work trying to fix the running game but the defense is a whole other story. The confidence of this defense appears to be shattered, even though there is plenty of talent on that side of the ball. A defense that played with so much swagger against Maryland and Georgia Tech–the two Power 5 wins on the schedule–appears shaken.

Defensive backs who played well in the first six games have been out of position. Linebackers who played with a fierceness in three goal-line stands against Maryland were routinely blocked.

Maybe Vince Lombardi said what every Temple fan was thinking on Saturday night:

Unfortunately, Vince is not around to fix this disaster and we will have to rely on Rod Carey to restore some kind of order.

He’s all we got.

We’ll have to wait until Thursday night to find out if he’s all we need.

Predictions: First last week. I prefaced my picks by saying it was a very tough week for picks (it always is when something doesn’t jump right out at you) and it was. Went 3-3 SU and 3-3 against the spread, winning on Georgia State beating Troy, Indiana winning at Nebraska and TCU upsetting Texas. Lost on Liberty at Rutgers, Ball State losing to the always well-coached Ohio squad and Pitt crapping the bed against Manny Diaz and visiting Miami. For the season, now 32-15 SU and 28-19 ATS.

This week (for amusement only): Going with Georgia Tech getting the 7.5 against visiting Pitt. Miami, which is in disarray, was able to go up to Pitt and beat the Panthers. GT is not in as much disarray as Miami and has the home-field advantage so I could see GT winning this more than the Panthers. Pitt might win, but this is more of a 20-17 game than a 25-17 one. Others: Visiting Buffalo getting the 2 at Eastern Michigan, UCLA covering the 5.5 against visiting Colorado, Northern Illinois going from a 1-point underdog to a 1-point favorite over visiting Central Michigan, Memphis covering the 5.5 against visiting SMU and Middle Tennessee State covering the 3 at Charlotte and former Temple punter Connor Bowler.

The Memphis logic: At home, Memphis was able to take care of business against Tulsa, 47-17, the same Tulsa team that took SMU into double-OT in Dallas. You can point to the Temple scores against both teams but the big difference here is that Memphis is at home and the excitement around Game Day should propel the Tigers.

Tuesday: The narrow path forward

 

10.31.19
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Rod Carey Has Been Here Before

Rod Carey, to quote Ricky Riccardo talking to Lucy, has some “splaining to do.”

Being beaten this badly in consecutive games is something new to Temple head coach Rod Carey.

That doesn’t mean Carey hasn’t ever rebounded from consecutive losses.

You need to go only back to last year to find Carey’s Northern Illinois team losing consecutive games only to earn his most surprising MAC win in the title game, a 30-29 win over heavily favored Buffalo.

So this staff has been known to bounce back.

Last year, Carey lost consecutive home games to Miami (Ohio) and Western Michigan but had already clinched the West Division. In the title game, his team rallied from way down to beat Buffalo.

So they have been here before.

It’s just not has been this bad.

No NIU team in Carey’s six years ever lost games by scores like 63-21 and 45-21. In fact, Carey’s worst regular-season loss in 82 games as an FBS head coach was 48-17 at South Florida in 2016 (the same year Temple beat USF, 46-30).

So, in that sense, this is uncharted territory.

Unfortunately, Temple is not going to win the AAC or even the AAC East this season. Cincinnati would have to implode and that’s just not happening but the Owls can beat their expectations–they were picked No. 4 in the East behind UCF, Cincy and USF. They would be almost assured of finishing ahead of a USF team with a win there exactly one week from now. They are certainly at least as physically talented as USF and Tulane and far more than UConn and proving it on the field would be a nice way to finish out this season.

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.33.54 AM

Owls were picked for fourth and, unless their play improves, that’s just where they will finish.

To do so, they are going to have to find their running game even if they have to manufacture it by attacking defenses with more lead blockers than the defense has to ward off.  They probably won’t do it with the RPO, especially with a quarterback who is better suited without an RPO style offense.

Carey will have had a dozen days to pour over the film and find it out for himself or decide that he’s too stubborn to change anything and forge ahead with the same kind of game plans that resulted in disaster the last two weeks. Look at the Kansas State film above. Is this coaching staff even capable of putting in a fullback play like the one above that helped the Wildcats beat Oklahoma? I think they are, but they will have to earn my trust going forward.

Improvise and adjust have to be the catchwords of this staff now. Otherwise, a nuclear-type implosion is what they will be remembered for this season and no one, especially them, should want that.

Saturday: Game Day Without The Owls

10.29.19
by

Temple vs. UCF: Disgraceful and Inept

temple-ucf-matchup

Editor’s Note: Fizzy, a former Temple player,  just about every one of the other 29,000 fans in attendance, was shocked and appalled by the Owls’ poor play on Saturday night. His summary follows. 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Today’s analysis will be brief.  That’s because everything I said about SMU, could be an accurate comment about the UCF game.  So take last week’s out of the trash bin and read it again.

And therein lies the problem.  Nothing ever changes with this coaching staff.  The weaknesses we showed against Buffalo, were capitalized on by SMU and UCF.  We stay in the four-three with man to man coverage, despite our total inability to operate that defense successfully.

weinraub

Fizzy here at the Boca Raton Bowl, where the Owls will probably return if they only win one more game.

I would like to take some time here to apologize.  As we ran out to a  5- 1 record, I kept talking about how much more talent we had than the teams we beat. Well, yes Doris, that was true then, but it’s not now.  When we got to the really good football programs, everything changed. Now, most of the good programs have talent that is equal to, or better than ours. I should have known that.

So what that means is the coaching staff has to innovate. On defense, there are many different alignments I can think of that would upset the blocking schemes. Some would put more pressure on the QB, (we had none) and some would throw many unusual zones and combo zones and man-to-man pass defense up so the QB could no be sure of our alignment, and still bring pressure.  In our three losses, we have been beaten for at least nine long touchdown passes and six long runs.  Our defense stinks.  If you can’t pressure the QB and you can’t defend long, what’s left?

On offense, we also show no imagination as we have basically been stymied. Forget the terrible play calls in many situations.  If it’s broke, fix it!  Try a hurry-up or unbalanced line with two backs in the backfield.  Try a power I, or go to one of the split formations.  Damn, go to a single wing for a few series, anything to make the defense uncomfortable.  Put Centeio and Russo together, so there are two passing threats.  I don’t want to hear the coaches say, “Well that’s our offense and they have to stop it.”  Guess what?  They have stopped it.  You have to do something different if we are not to be further embarrassed for the rest of our schedule.

In short, if our coaching staff doesn’t innovate on both offense and defense, well, I’m not going to sit out in the cold.  It was bad enough I left with eight minutes into the third quarter last night.  A friend offered us seats upstairs in an enclosed box, and I didn’t want to throw-up on the nice seats.

Thursday: Some Explaining To Do

Saturday: Game Day Without The Owls

10.27.19
by

That’s no way to play the game in Philly

There were a couple of good things to say about Saturday night.

Neither, unfortunately, had anything to do with what happened on the field.

One, the rain held off until after everybody was gone which was about midway through the third quarter. Two, it was warmer than expected for a night game in late October in Philadelphia.

That’s about it.

Temple football's Khalif and Wyatt

Bernard Pierce (30) thanks his fullback Wyatt Benson (44) and tight end Evan Rodriguez (88) in the good old days when Temple used fullbacks and tight ends to lead the way for great tailbacks, control the clock and keep the ball out of the hands of spread offense teams.

The game itself was a 62-21 shit show with Temple trying to out-UCF the Knights at their own game.

Good teams make you play their game and not fall into the trap of playing the other guy’s game. This was about as bad a game plan as we’ve seen since Matt Rhule’s first year. He eventually learned to go back to his instincts, which was to ditch the spread for a pro-style game.

We don’t even know what Rod Carey’s instincts are but they were the wrong ones on the past two Saturdays.

The way Temple football became relevant over the last decade was to run the ball behind fullbacks and tight ends, shorten the game, have long drives, keep your defense and the opposing offense off the field. That’s the kind of game that Philadelphia fans love.

We’ve seen less and less of that DNA this year and it was particularly on display in the last two weeks.

Unless something changes drastically, Temple football will lose whatever relevance it has in the American Athletic Conference as the years go along.

Screenshot 2019-10-27 at 1.47.25 AM

For some reason unbeknownst to me, a Northern Illinois staff that used the RPO offense has force-fed that same offense on a Temple roster better suited to run a power football game.

Great coaches tailor their schemes to the talent that they have and not the talent that they want, even if they were more comfortable doing something elsewhere.

Run the ball behind H-blocks, tight ends and, yes, even a fullback, and the chances are that UCF doesn’t have the ball enough to score even half of the 62 points it finished with on Saturday night. Instead, the Owls try to do things ass-backward this year, try to establish the run off the pass instead of the other way around.

Bill Belichick doesn’t run Tom Brady out of an RPO nor should Rod Carey do the same with Anthony Russo. You don’t see the Detroit Lions running an RPO for Matthew Stafford. That’s a crazy offense that minimizes what you can get out of a quarterback with a strong arm.

The Temple DNA has been to load up a great tailback behind a great offensive line, establish the run, and open up lanes in the passing game with play-action fakes.

That’s what made Temple the winningest team (tied with Memphis) in the league until last week. That’s Temple TUFF.  Knock people off the ball, control the clock, and make plays in the passing game off play-action fakes to the running backs. When you have key injuries in a number of areas (center, defensive tackles, safety), you build a scheme around shortening the game and slowing the game down when playing a fast-break team.

That did not happen on Saturday night and I don’t know if this coaching staff will ever improvise and adjust. Unless they do, we’re looking at a six-win season and that’s medicority in a season that was supposed to be a lot better.

Tuesday: Fizzy’s Corner

10.25.19
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Game Night Minus-1: Flipping the field

Going into the season, if you honestly asked yourself the question what sets Temple apart from every other team in this conference you might come away with these takes:

  • Great linebackers
  • Great offensive line
  • Great return game

The return game is led by the school’s first (and perhaps last) returning first-team All-American. (We’ll answer why later in this post.)

If there’s a key to winning in football, it’s accentuating your strengths to the detriment of the bad guys. The linebackers have been as advertised, all single-digit Temple TUFF guys who have played up to the honor. The offensive line is still the offensive line that Ryquell Armstead followed to six touchdowns at Houston and helped him become a fifth-round NFL draft selection.

Something appears to be missing.

Screenshot 2019-10-25 at 11.35.06 AM

Forecast: Mostly cloudy with a chance of punt returns

Oh yeah.

That great return game, particularly on punt returns. Isaiah Wright, that first-team All-American punt returner, has 10 punt returns for 68 yards, a 6.8 average and no touchdowns. Pedestrian figures for a first-team All-American considering that he had 19 punt returns for 23.8 per return last year and two touchdowns. The alarming number is the good returns he has passed up so far, instead electing to fair catch. He’s had more fair catches (16) than punt returns (10). From my seat, he’s made pretty good decisions on about half of those as a guy was in his face. The other half, not so good. He’s had at least a step, maybe two, to work his magic.

Enough with the fair catches already. If we wanted a guy to make fair catches, we’d have any other wide receiver on the roster back there.

Nobody makes the first guy miss as much as Wright and, if I’ve missed anything this year, that’s what I’ve missed the most: Seeing Wright make the bad guys break their ankles trying to tackle him and make that punt return the best offensive play in the playbook.

I don’t think we will ever see a returning first-team All-American at Temple again unless he’s a true freshman or sophomore and Temple doesn’t recruit those kinds of guys (Trevor Lawrence of Clemson is an example). Once they are a junior, they can declare so Wright did Temple a huge favor coming back for his senior year.

He can do himself a bigger favor by returning those punts for the final half of the season and showing the NFL scouts that he still has the Wright stuff. He can still raise his stock from a UDA to a high pick with a good final seven games. Remember, at this time last year, Duke’s Daniel Jones was rated as a UDA but his terrific second half of the season–including the bowl win over Temple–kept moving him from a fifth to a third to a first-round pick as the season went along.

The most important thing now, though, is helping his teammates achieve their goal which is a championship run (see above video). Wright was a big part of those great plans for this year and just because hasn’t been so far doesn’t mean he can’t be going forward.

Nothing better than Saturday night to start flipping the field only the way he can and reminding people that the Owls have a weapon no other team in this league can match.

Predictions (for amusement only): A very tough week for picks. Thought about taking Tulane getting the 3.5 points at Navy but Navy is playing so well that I’m letting that game go. Do like Indiana giving the 1 at Nebraska, Georgia State as a pick at Troy (still not fully recovered from losing coach Neal Brown), Liberty giving the 7.5 at Rutgers (betting against RU has made a lot of people rich), Ball State giving the 3 at Ohio, fake Miami (Ohio) getting the 2.5 against visiting Kent State (can’t believe Miami is an underdog there), TCU getting the 2.5 over visiting Texas and Pitt laying the 5 against the real Miami. So thankful that Manny Diaz is learning on the job there and not at Temple.

Last week: As far as the spreads go, I was 5-2-1 (the push was Wake beating FSU by the 2) so I will just throw out the push. Lost on Cuse and Duke but won five straight: ECU covering the 33 against UCF, Minnesota covering the 29.5  (Rutgers never covers these ridiculous spreads) and also winning with Louisiana Tech (a much better team than people realize), Georgia Tech (Diaz is even worse than Collins, if that’s possible), and BYU not only covering but winning the game OUTRIGHT against unbeaten Boise State. For the season: 29-12 SU, 25-16 ATS.

Sunday: Game Analysis

 

10.23.19
by

TU-UCF: Getting The Swag Back

The real testament to how badly SMU beat Temple was not the final score on Saturday; 45-21 was bad enough for those of us who thought those types of beatings were over under the stewardship of Rod Carey.

The real testament could come in a couple of nights.

Can Temple get its swag back?

cherryhelmet

Gosh, you have to hope so but that’s the kind of loss that could shake anyone’s swagger.

The Owls have always played with the confidence of a team under control of what was happening on the field. The fact that so many things went wrong on Saturday could shake that confidence.

Or not.

The last time this happened was in Buffalo and the Owls got their swag back rather quickly and played well after that.

You have to hope for the same again but UCF is a very talented team.

Are they as talented as Memphis?

I don’t think so, but we will have to find out on Saturday night.

Unlike the last couple of years, this is a beatable UCF team. They lost at Pitt, the same Pitt team that beat Delaware by three points. They beat ECU by pretty much the same margin Temple did.

This is more about Temple, though.


Temple football is establishing
the run first then, only after
the run is established,
bring the linebackers and the
safeties for the bad guys up to
the line of scrimmage and making
the defense susceptible to explosive
plays in the play-action
passing game

Defensive backs that were reliable all season long got beat like drums against SMU. Receivers with relatively good hands (except for the Buffalo game) dropped balls like they were soaked with oil. Coaches who made good decisions all year made questionable ones. (Like, how on any 3d and 5 would you have Todd Centeio in when a completion has to be made?)

One of the things the Owls have to do, in my mind, is changing things up. The film UCF will watch is one of the Owls trying to match SMU point-for-point and that’s not really the Temple football we’ve all come to know and love. Temple football is establishing the run first then, only after the run is established, bring the linebackers and the safeties for the bad guys up to the line of scrimmage and making the defense susceptible to explosive plays in the play-action passing game.

That means using a Temple strength–the offensive line–to establish the run and, at times, using the tight ends as H-blockers for both Ra’Mahn Davis and Jager Gardner if straight-ahead blocking isn’t enough to get the job done.

That approach limits the touches of the high-octane UCF offense, chews some clock, and allows Temple receivers to roam free through the UCF secondary as a result of play-action occupying the eyes of the UCF linebackers and safeties. If Temple has two eight-minute drives that result in touchdowns, the Owls win this game. Even one such drive might be enough.

That’s what UCF hasn’t seen on film so far and that’s what it needs to see on Saturday night.

That’s probably the best way to get the Temple swag back. It probably is the only way.

Friday: Game Night Minus-1 Clues

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.22.19
by

SMU: Could’ve, Would’ve Should’ve

footballs

Editor’s Note: Former Temple player Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub posts his thoughts in this space every Tuesday. 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Last week, I said I still was waiting for Anthony Russo to have a great game.  Guess what?  He had that great game against SMU, but his receivers were somewhere else.  He was 18 – 32 with at least seven drops.  Three of those drops were probable touchdowns and the others would have been key first downs.  Despite everything else, if we caught the ball, it would have been a tight contest.

weinraub

What does a coach do about this lack of concentration?  Drill, drill, drill! One suggestion is to substitute different colored tennis balls for the football, and the receiver has to call out the color – contact allowed.  There are probably 100 other drills that may help.

While we’re discussing the offense, I really thought the play calling was exceptionally conservative.  On most of the third and fourth and shorts, everything was one back, up-the-gut – no trickery, nothing going back the other way. On other occasions, the passes were short of the first-down marker or dumps in the backfield.  Rolling out Russo and Centeio may have helped.  I still don’t understand why Russo doesn’t keep the ball on an RPO or bootleg once in a while, and if I see the quick screen to the outside one more time, I’m gonna scream.

Screenshot 2019-10-21 at 11.05.57 PM

On defense, I believe we gave up four long touchdown passes.  That shows we can’t cover speed man-to-man, especially if the QB has time.  (I thought we didn’t blitz nearly enough.)  Therefore, we need an alternative defensive scheme.  A scheme that both puts pressure on the QB, and also plays a deceiving zone. One way might be to have five guys playing the run with all sorts of blitzes, while six guys play a zone.  If six guys are playing zone, that zone could have many different looks.  It could be a 4-2, 3-3, 1-5, etc.  Most importantly, there has to be deep help for the corners.  C’mon guys!  You have almost more coachers than my 1959 team had players.  Innovate!  What you’re doing isn’t gonna get you to the league championship game, despite our talent.

In summary, we got the crap kicked out of us by a really well-coached and quarterbacked team.  However, one league loss doesn’t sink a season.  Can we come back?  Central Florida will fill the air with footballs.

Thursday:   Changing Things Up

Saturday: Game Night

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.19.19
by

TU-SMU: Losing Is Fundamental

Football is a simple game.

Throw the ball. Run the ball. Catch the ball. Block. Tackle. Be disciplined to the whistle. Cover your man.

They are called fundamentals.

Temple did only one of them right on Saturday in a 45-21 loss to SMU.

Screenshot 2019-10-19 at 7.19.31 PM

The record wearing Cherry and White during the same time frame is 24-7

Quarterback Anthony Russo did all that he could to get the Owls a win but to quote Gabrielle Bundchen-Brady after a rare Super Bowl loss by the New England Patriots, “my husband can’t throw the ball and catch it, too.” After watching the game a second time (fast-forwarding through the drops), Russo would have had at a minimum … minimum, a four-touchdown, 351-yard passing game if just seven of the nine drops were caught.

That should be enough to win in college football.

It was a disappointing loss in a lot of ways for the Owls but certainly their troubles at catching the ball ranked right at the top BECAUSE this was not expected. Sure, the Owls dropped three completions that would have gone for first downs in a loss at Buffalo but the rest of the season they’ve been pretty sure-handed.


Even if it means
tweaking the spread
option by using two
tight ends to block
for tailbacks Davis
and Jager Gardner,
it’s worth it to chew
up clock and bring the
safeties and linebackers
up to the line of
scrimmage and make them
vulnerable to play-action
fakes. That’s what the
Temple TUFF brand
was built upon

They needed to continue that tendency against SMU and, for some reason, they did not. Maybe the Owls failed to pack the stick’em and left it home at the Edberg-Olson facility. Whatever the explanation, their normally dependable hands failed them, particularly early when it could have made a big difference.

Their slow start took them out of a game plan that would have served them a lot better. They should have run the ball behind Re’Mahn Davis to create passing lanes for Russo. That has been Temple’s Modus Operandi for the past few years with a variety of running backs not named Davis and it really needs to be a priority going forward, certainly against a UCF team that, like SMU, can throw the ball and put points on the board in bunches. Even if it means tweaking the spread option by using two tight ends to block for tailbacks Davis and Jager Gardner, it’s worth it to chew up clock and bring the safeties and linebackers up to the line of scrimmage and make them vulnerable to play-action fakes. That’s what the Temple TUFF brand was built upon. “We’re going to run the ball and we’re going to knock you back and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.” Not what it has turned out to be this year: “We’re going to run a read-option with a classic pro passer and hope it works.” SMU did a nice job to stop the run early, but would it have been as nice a job with two tight ends leading the way and a little jet sweep motion thrown in? I’m sold on Rod Carey but he definitely has a blind spot in this area. Maybe some bifocals will help.

The blocking and tackling also were not good nor was the discipline after the whistle, particularly after the game was out of reach and that probably had a lot to do with frustration.

Fundamentals and approaches can be worked on, though, and have little to do with the talent at hand which is good enough to win. It’s already proven to be good enough talent to beat Memphis, which just might be better than SMU.

Winning was fundamental a week ago.

So, too, was losing on Saturday.

How well the Owls address their largely correctable fundamental errors this week will determine if this ends up being a 10- or 6-win season.

Tuesday: Fizzy’s Corner

 

10.18.19
by

Game Day Minus-1: Greatness Within Grasp

The design of this play, from keeping the back in the backfield to occupy the linemen, and putting Isaiah Wright in motion, to the execution, was perfection. 

The Temple sports motto has been for the past five years: Greatness Doesn’t Quit.

No bigger test for the merging of motto and reality on Saturday (3:30, ESPN2) at Dallas against host SMU at Gerald Ford Stadium.

Win, and greatness is at hand and the path to a possible AAC championship is open.

Lose, and just another mediocre-to-good season is probably the best we can hope for.

Greatness sounds a lot better.

Look, winning in college football is a hard thing there are plenty of teams trying to do what Temple is trying to do. This is where the team that preaches the greatness motto must put it into practice.

Screenshot 2019-10-18 at 3.00.41 PM

TV games as an appetizer to the main course (Temple-SMU)

Hopefully, the Temple TUFF motto kicks into gear at SMU. The last time Temple went to SMU, it won in a shootout as P.J. Walker had a great game. The trip before that the Owls had a 28-7 lead and coughed that up before losing.

There are a couple of big differences between then and now, though.

One, SMU is a much better team now than it was on those other two occasions. Two, so is Temple. The teams are very even. Temple beat Georgia Tech by 22 and Georgia Tech beat USF by five. SMU beat USF by 27. Not much else to go by so that’s an indication that the team with the fewest turnovers will win.

The pass/catch combination of Shane Buechele and James Proche will be the toughest the Owls have faced so far but, to me, the best pass defense is putting the quarterback on his backside and that’s the challenge that guys like Ifeanyi Maijeh (pronounced MY JAY), Dan Archibong, Dana Levine, Karamo Dioubate and Zack Mesday are going to have to embrace. Put Buechele on his backside and make him uncomfortable enough and covering Proche and stopping the run becomes that much easier.

For my money, the Temple team that comes to Dallas is far superior to the Tulsa team that came to Dallas two weeks ago and took the Mustangs to double-overtime. That’s on paper, though.

On the field, the Owls will have to prove it.

Greatness might not quit, but you have to want it a lot more than the other guy to achieve it. Talking about it and doing it are two different things and the talk stops at 3:30.

It’s right at hand this week and within reach. Let’s hope the Owls grab it, hold on and take it back to Philadelphia.

Screenshot 2019-10-18 at 3.01.26 PM

TV watching after the Temple game

Predictions: We definitely weren’t great last week but not bad, just mediocre. 3-3 against the spread and straight-up (lost on Maryland, Virginia and Hawaii but won on Ball State, Cincinnati and Indiana). For the season, 24-10 straight up; 20-14 ATS. Going for greatness this week (spreads at time of publication, home teams in CAPS): Tonight, taking SYRACUSE getting 3 at home against Pitt. Haven’t been sold on Pitt since the 17-14 win over Delaware. Saturday: Duke getting the 3 at VIRGINIA; Wake Forest laying the 2 at FLORIDA STATE; East Carolina getting 33 at UCF; BYU getting 6.5 against visiting Boise State; Louisiana Tech laying 1.5 at SOUTHERN MISS and Minnesota laying the 29.5 at RUTGERS.

BUYOUT BOWL: Georgia Tech getting 18 at MIAMI, noon Saturday. Geoff Collins doesn’t win this game but he at least does as well against Manny Diaz as Central Michigan did (a 17-12 loss). That’s where I see this game ending, something like 17-13, Miami. The Hurricanes have had trouble scoring all year so I don’t see them ever covering 18 against anyone.

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.16.19
by

Reasons for Optimism at SMU

Bad news for Memphis fans at the beginning of this video

At the top of reasons to be optimistic about Temple’s chances in Dallas this weekend came a moment during a post-game interview on Saturday.

The sideline reporter grabbed Temple coach Rod Carey and asked him how satisfying the win over a ranked Memphis was and he didn’t skip a beat.

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SMU quarterback Shane Buechele was one of the Elite 11 quarterbacks (along with Temple’s Anthony Russo) in 2015

“Great win, but we have a lot to clean up,” Carey said before running off the field.

That got me to thinking. Geoff Collins had a similar moment almost a year ago to the day and I wondered what he said.  So I looked it up.  After beating No. 20 Cincinnati, Collins spouted this jibberish:

“This is just a tribute to our culture and our players and the love those young men have for each other in the locker room.”

Huh?

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One coach talking nuts and bolts football, another so far in the abstract he reminded you of Marianne Williamson. Carey saw some things to clean up and he was already thinking about getting the bucket, mop, and Pine-Sol out. Collins was patting himself on the back so much he almost broke his spine.

That, to me, in essence, is the difference between Temple football 2018 and Temple football 2019.

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Other than that, which was super important, funny how fast things can change in a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, Temple looked like a vulnerable team for “only” beating ECU, 27-17, on the road and SMU looked like the best team in the league after beating crosstown rival TCU, 41-37.

This looked like a tough spot for Temple and it still might be but what happened since was encouraging. Now things have changed just a little, even though the “public” might not see it. The line opened with SMU as a 6.5-point favorite and is now, last I checked, at 7.5. This time, though, the line tells me nothing. It would be nice, though, if even a fraction of the 25,000 Eagles fans in Dallas this weekend made the short trip to SMU to cheer on their “real” hometown squad.

Tulsa took SMU into overtime in Dallas and then fell flat on its face in a 45-10 home loss to Navy. Tulsa is not as good as we thought it might be nor probably is SMU. TCU has a good brand name but, as a current football team, probably not up to that name after losing, 49-24, to a good Iowa State team last week.

Temple can win this game if it cleans up that little mess it left on the field that allowed a ranked team to come back from a 23-7 deficit.

The fact that Carey spent this week using that mop to do some work instead of scratching his own back with it bodes well for Temple’s chances.

Saturday: Game Day